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I AM ONE OF SPROUT'S:

About Me

I am a mom of 4 kids(13,12,10 and 8)who taught preschool for 2 years.
I hope you can use this blog as a resource to find fun activities to do with your children. Some ideas are new, while others have been around a while. This is a place where I can store all our activities without having to actually have to store them in my attic. I hope you find some fun and easy ideas.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

In my preschool classes, we have been reading the book," If You Give A Mouse A Cookie."

I have been feeling under the weather for the last week or so, that is why there is not step by step instructions. But I think most activities are self explanatory.

First, we made mouse ears to wear.Then we made mouse puppets with white paper bags.This is a students mouse, that is why the eye is not in the normal place.

We also painted triangles and decorated the triangles to be mice.Instead of triangles, you can turn the letter "M" into a mouse.You could also paint the letter"C" for cookie. Paint the "C" a light brown and add dark brown circles for chocolate chips.

I also made some fake cookies out of construction paper. Hid them around the room and had the kids pretend they were mice trying to find the cookies.Tomorrow for snack, we are going to decorate sugar cookies.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Here is a fun way and easy way to make snow that does not melt. Really !!! When it comes out of the freezer it really feels like snow, when it is not cold it feels like jelly . My kids love it. I am going to add it to my preschool class' sensory table.

There are a couple of ways to get the ingredient necessary to make fake polymer snow. You can purchase the fake snow or you can harvest sodium polyacrylate from common household sources. It is non-toxic but do not let the kids purposely eat it.

You can find sodium polyacrylate inside disposable diapers or as crystals in a garden center, used to help keep soil moist.

All you need to do to make this type of fake snow is add water to the sodium polyacrylate. Add some water, mix the gel. Add more water until you have the desired amount of wetness. The gel will not dissolve. It's just a matter of how 'slushy' you want your snow.

You can put it in the refrigerator or freezer to make it more like snow.

We used: Borax (in the laundry section), boiling water, pipe cleaners, wide mouth jars, yarn, butter knife and scissors. Cut the pipe cleaners and shape like snowflakes. Any shape will turn out cool. No 2 snowflakes are alike. The snowflake needs to be able to fit in the jar.

Tie yarn onto snowflake and rap the other end of the yarn to the butter knife for when you place it in the jar.

Pour 3 Tbsp of Borax per every cup of boiling water in a wide mouth jar. Stir until Borax is dissolved. Place the pipe cleaner in the mixture.

Now wait an hour or more for the crystals to grow. The really sparkle in the light.